THE Government wants three out of five teenage mothers to be in education or training and the under-18 conception rate to be halved by 2010, it announced last week. Already the proportion of teenage mothers in education, training or work has risen from 17 per cent in 1997 to 29 per cent in 2001. But Britain’s teenage conception rate declined by only 6 percentage points between 1998 and 2000, and remains the highest in Western Europe.
